View full sizeMobile may have finally approved a contract with Mobile Group to manage the city's stormwater monitoring, but Mobile Bay Keeper, a watchdog group, still isn't happy.

MOBILE, Alabama -- Mobile may have finally approved a contract with Mobile Group to manage the city’s stormwater monitoring program, but the city isn’t out of the cross-hairs of environmental regulators, according to a local watchdog group.

The city might also have shackled itself to the contractor for years to come in the process, said Casi Callaway, director of Mobile Bay Keeper.

Flo Kessler, an attorney for the city, said Callaway’s concerns are off base, and that the city is working with the Alabama Environmental Management Agency to avoid litigation.

Callaway had attempted to convince the City Council to delay approving the contract, worth up to $500,000, until it could be amended to protect the city’s interests and structured so as to help the city transition into an in-house model of stormwater management.

The federal Clean Water Act requires cities to monitor their stormwater drainage systems, identify sources of pollution and work to eliminate them.

Most cities in Alabama handle their programs with in-house employees working under guidance from a consultant, rather than handing the program over to the consultant entirely, as Mobile does.

The in-house model has helped other cities comply with regulations at a fraction of the cost that Mobile pays each year.

Despite Callaway’s protests, the council approved the contract anyway.

In an email to City Council members, Callaway identified several potential flaws in the contract.

One of the major flaws, she said, is the contract’s lack of a timeline for implementation.

Earlier this year, ADEM cited the city for several deficiencies in its stormwater program, setting a deadline of July 3 to get back into compliance.

By the time the City Council approved the contract on Tuesday, that deadline had already passed. Several of the City Council members who voted in favor of the contract said it was important to get Mobile Group working in order to show ADEM that the city was making progress.

Callaway, though, said that the contract, as it’s currently written, won’t prevent ADEM from penalizing the city because it doesn’t lay out concrete benchmarks for improving the city’s program or when they will be met.

In fact, she said, the language of the contract simply mirrors that of a compliance plan written up by the Mobile Group after ADEM dinged the city earlier this year, and that plan stretches out into 2016.

“It is 100 percent set up for (Mobile Group) to get this contract again, year after year after year,” she said.

Kessler, the city’s attorney on the issue, vigorously disputed that point.

“She’s just wrong about that. This contract is only for one year, and if you look at it, it actually includes language about helping train city employees and creating processes for them to follow in the future,” Kessler said.

If the city decides to bring the job in-house, it will be better able to do so thanks to some of the activities outlined for Mobile Group in the contract, she said.

Callaway countered that the language was vague and didn’t require any concrete “deliverables” for the city.

Baykeeper did succeed in getting some amendments into the contract.

At Councilwoman Gina Gregory’s behest, the council inserted a clause into the contract that gives the city ownership of Mobile Group’s work product, including maps of the city’s storm sewer system and its outfall lines. Such documents would be vital to the city, should it attempt to take over management of the program. 